Our world is overflowing with mind-numbing acts of brutality that civilized people had come to assume had been consigned to the history of the Middle Ages. Women are too often the first to be brutalized. In Nigeria, Boko Haram extremists kidnapped hundreds of girls. In Iraq, hundreds and possibly thousands of Yazidi girls and women were abducted, enslaved, abused or slaughtered. Elsewhere, women of Christian, Muslim, atheist and other beliefs continue to be targets of unspeakable crimes and humiliations. Beyond an occasional hashtag campaign, the world has done precious little to come to their rescue.

Now comes word that a group of activists, led by feminist icon Gloria Steinem, will take action in an effort to change the status quo on the Korean Peninsula.… Seguir leyendo »

The famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal often said, “Where democracy is strong, it is good for Jews; where it is weak, it is bad for Jews.” Today, 100,000 Jews in Hungary are worried about their future.

Last week, the mayor of a small town in eastern Hungary, presided over the hanging in effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former President Shimon Peres, saying that he did it to protest “the efforts of Freemason Jews to rule the world.” While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the “lynching,” the reality is that this action occurred in a country where anti-Semitism is increasingly legitimized in word and deed by Hungary’s political leadership.… Seguir leyendo »

As millions of Roman Catholics rejoice in the news that two popes are being fast-tracked to sainthood, many Jews are smiling with them. Pope Francis has approved John XXIII and John Paul II for the church’s supreme honor in a process that quick-stepped protocol. Jews, on the other hand, will remember both of these men for taking steps that were a millennium in the making.

Over the centuries, Catholic Church-inspired anti-Semitism spawned the demonizing and murder of countless Jews. Across Europe and wherever the church’s teachings reached, the faithful were taught that Jews had no place among decent human beings, that the Jewish people’s covenant with the Almighty was rendered null and void by Christianity, and that Jews were cursed to eternal tribulation for having crucified Jesus.… Seguir leyendo »

The last time Jewish parents had reason to fear a knock at the door while celebrating the circumcision (brit milah) of their baby boy, Stalin and his communist goons were running the Soviet Union. Democratic Germany is a far cry from the Stalin era, but a ruling by a judge in Cologne banning circumcision and subsequent criminal charges brought against a German rabbi in Bavaria have unleashed forces in Europe that legislation alone cannot defeat.

In Switzerland — a country whose national character almost never allows it to invoke another nation’s practices — a number of hospitals invoked the judge’s ruling to stop circumcisions.… Seguir leyendo »

Here they go again. Last April’s so-called Durban II human rights conference, convened by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, welcomed Iran’s President Mahmoud “Wipe Israel from the Map” Ahmadinejad as its opening keynoter. On that day of infamy, more than 30 delegations, including Canada and the United States, walked out on the speech.

They should have kept walking.

Last month, UNHRC passed new, onerous resolutions against Israel – the only country designated as a “permanent agenda item” by the United Nations’ chief global human rights address. One resolution urged reparations only for Palestinian victims of hostilities with Israel.… Seguir leyendo »